Maybe it was too much generalisation, but my point stands, only a minority of Italians really showed fighting spirit during engagements of WW2 (even more if you take the aforementioned bad leadership and bad equipment into consideration), of course there are exceptions from the rule. The veterancy bonus of the Italian volunteers feels wrong for me, even if the Bersaglieri Regiment in that case performed well. Seems like they were determined, so 1 star veterancy might be sufficient in order to portray their performance in an adequate way, but 2 stars like the one unit in phase C for me seems overdone. I'd rather have at least 1 star fusiliers in the recon tab or 1 star Grenadiere in the infantry tab...
Beside the specific 716. ID related, allow me a few general notes:
Overall I find Axis infantry pretty much underwhelming in Steel Division. I know, in that late stage of the war, a lot of rookies had to be enlisted and Germany was really short in manpower due to the terrible losses at the eastern front, but nevertheless there had been also a lot of German veterans of the different war theatres in the ranks of the newly formed divisions in France. Often platoons were mixed (a few vets together with draftees) in order to boost or enhance their performance. Many Allied Divisions have elite infantry in SD '44, allthough only a minority had real combat experience before the landing in Normandy '44. Of course this is no generalisation, there were exceptions, but right now Allied divisions seem to have access to much better infantry than Axis in SD 44, which I don't really understand. Especially the regular Panzergrenadiere don't perform well, allthough they should have much more suppressing power, after all they are equipped with 2x MGs 42!
I also wonder why Osttruppen lack ammo for their MG, compared to regular infantry troops. I very much prefer to use Osttruppen, rather than Ersatztruppen, the latter being only armed with carabines and therefore pretty much useless. I can understand the disheartened penalty of the Osttruppen, but why do they lack ammo for the MG?!
Beside the specific 716. ID related, allow me a few general notes:
Overall I find Axis infantry pretty much underwhelming in Steel Division. I know, in that late stage of the war, a lot of rookies had to be enlisted and Germany was really short in manpower due to the terrible losses at the eastern front, but nevertheless there had been also a lot of German veterans of the different war theatres in the ranks of the newly formed divisions in France. Often platoons were mixed (a few vets together with draftees) in order to boost or enhance their performance. Many Allied Divisions have elite infantry in SD '44, allthough only a minority had real combat experience before the landing in Normandy '44. Of course this is no generalisation, there were exceptions, but right now Allied divisions seem to have access to much better infantry than Axis in SD 44, which I don't really understand. Especially the regular Panzergrenadiere don't perform well, allthough they should have much more suppressing power, after all they are equipped with 2x MGs 42!
I also wonder why Osttruppen lack ammo for their MG, compared to regular infantry troops. I very much prefer to use Osttruppen, rather than Ersatztruppen, the latter being only armed with carabines and therefore pretty much useless. I can understand the disheartened penalty of the Osttruppen, but why do they lack ammo for the MG?!
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